3 John 1 (ERV) · OmniBible

1Chapter

¹Greetings from the Elder. To my dear friend Gaius, a person I truly love.
²My dear friend, I know that you are doing well spiritually. So I pray that everything else is going well with you and that you are enjoying good health. ³Some believers came and told me about the truth in your life. They told me that you continue to follow the way of truth. This made me very happy. ⁴It always gives me the greatest joy when I hear that my children are following the way of truth.
⁵My dear friend, it is good that you continue to help the believers. They are people you don’t even know. ⁶They told the church about the love you have. Please help them to continue their trip. Help them in a way that will please God. ⁷They went on their trip to serve Christ. They did not accept any help from people who are not believers. ⁸So we should help them. When we help them, we share with their work for the truth.
⁹I wrote a letter to the church, but Diotrephes will not listen to what we say. He always wants to be the leader. ¹⁰When I come, I will talk with him about what he is doing. He lies and says evil things about us, but that is not all. He refuses to welcome and help the believers who travel there. And he will not let others help them. If they do, he stops them from meeting with the church anymore.
¹¹My dear friend, don’t follow what is bad; follow what is good. Whoever does what is good is from God. But whoever does evil has never known God.
¹²Everyone says good things about Demetrius, and the truth agrees with what they say. Also, we say good about him. And you know that what we say is true.
¹³I have many things I want to tell you. But I don’t want to use pen and ink. ¹⁴I hope to visit you soon. Then we can be together and talk. ¹⁵Peace to you. The friends here with me send their love. Please give our love to each one of the friends there.

Study

Chapter 1

CSB

TWISTED SCRIPTURE

3 John 2

Prosperity preachers say that as children of the King every Christian has a right to wealth and health, and that these can be ours if only we’ll have enough faith. These preachers often wear expensive clothes and drive expensive cars, and they have television ministries in which they promise prosperity to anyone who financially supports them. While it is not wrong for a Christian to be healthy and wealthy, this verse does not promise that Christians will experience these benefits. In the context of John’s letter we can see that prosper means spiritual prosperity, which he primarily measures by a disciple’s faithfulness to the truth. In fact he mentioned truth three times in verses 3-4. Looking outside John’s letters, we see that the other apostles never promised riches to Christians. Paul, for example, suffered many bad experiences. He was lashed, beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked. He faced dangers and often lacked the finer things that accompany wealth (see 2Co 11:22-27). And yet judging by 3 John 2 we would say that Paul prospered.

CSB

John encouraged Gaius to continue his hospitality toward the missionaries. Such a ministry was important because these ministers were laboring on behalf of God. Underlying this discussion is a contrast between Christian missionaries and false teachers. An individual who welcomes a false teacher basically shares in his evil deeds (v. 11; 2Jn 10-11), but those who receive Christian missionaries are “coworkers with the truth” (v. 8).

CSB

Most likely the words “I wrote” refer to a previous letter now lost. It probably contained instructions from John that Diotrephes disregarded. Diotrephes, a man of influence and authority in the church, evidently was hostile toward the apostle John. The nature of his rebellion was observable in three distinct areas. (1) He loved to be in the first position. (2) He spread malicious gossip about John. (3) Failing to be content with those evil actions, he refused to receive believers from other assemblies and cast out of the church those who did receive the brethren. The sins of pride, gossip, and intolerance are frequently found together, and they compromise witness to the gospel.